The Redeemed

by M. R. Hall

  The lift that took her to the fifteenth floor of the Molyneux Tower was plastered with obscene graffiti and smelled so overpoweringly of ammonia that it burnt her nostrils during its painfully slow ascent. Bursting out of the doors, Jenny found herself looking down a long, noisy corridor. As she made her way along its full length to number 28, she was assailed by the sound of domestic arguments, barking dogs and the heavy thump of bass permeating the flimsy apartment walls.

  The woman who eventually shuffled to the door and half- opened it looked old enough to be Freddy's grandmother. Eileen Reardon was heavily overweight with unkempt greying hair that straggled to her shoulders. A loose, kaftan-style dress did little to disguise her bulk. Around her swollen neck she wore a pewter Celtic cross.

  'Mrs Reardon?'

  The woman peered at her suspiciously.

  'Jenny Cooper. Severn Vale District Coroner. I called earlier—'

  'Freddy's not back yet.' She looked Jenny up and down. 'I suppose you want to come in.'

  'If you wouldn't mind.'

  Mrs Reardon moved back along the small, stuffy hallway. Jenny followed her into a dingy living room. The only natural light was the little that leaked around the edges of shabby, tie-dyed drapes tacked permanently over the windows. Two mismatched sofas smothered in cheap ethnic throws were arranged on either side of a low table. The air was stale with the smell of Indian incense and cigarette smoke. Jenny had the feeling that Mrs Reardon spent most of her waking hours in this room.

  'Would you like some coffee?' Mrs Reardon asked.

  Jenny eyed a collection of filthy mugs sitting next to a grubby ashtray. 'No thanks. I'm fine.'

  She took a seat and noticed her host's badly swollen ankles and the wheezing sounds she made as she lowered herself onto the sofa opposite. A heart condition, Jenny thought, and wondered if Mrs Reardon was even aware that she was ill.

  'You want to talk to him about this girl, do you?' Eileen Reardon asked in a manner which suggested that she didn't approve of Eva Donaldson.

  'Yes. Did you know her?'

  'No,' she said, as if the idea was ridiculous. 'I don't go in for any of that.'

  'Church, you mean?'

  'All that puritanical stuff. I ask you, who cares? She regretted her past - so what? So do lots of us.' She gave a self-conscious laugh.

  'She seemed to have a lot of time for Freddy.'

  'He's that sort of boy, friends with everyone.'

  Jenny glanced at a rickety set of bamboo bookshelves jumbled with books on the New Age: titles on crystals, auras and chakra healing.

  'I know,' Mrs Reardon said, following her gaze, 'Freddy and I aren't exactly peas in a pod, are we? I'm afraid I haven't read the Bible since I was at school, if I ever did then.' She shrugged. 'Whatever works for you, I suppose.'

  'How did Freddy get involved with the Mission Church?' Jenny asked as innocently as she could. 'I've got a son almost the same age, I can't imagine how it happens.'

  'I don't remember,' Eileen said dismissively, 'probably someone at school. It seems to be a bit of a craze - a weird one, but I suppose that's the point. You don't rebel by doing something your parents would like.'

  'You don't quite approve.'

  'It's not the only way people get better, I know that much.'

  'I'll confess, I was there yesterday. I saw him speaking. He gave the impression that he as good as owed his life to the church.'

  'I was helping him, too,' Mrs Reardon said defensively. 'I'd been giving him healing for three years. They can't take all the credit.'

  'He said he'd been suffering from depression.'

  Mrs Reardon shifted her large mass uncomfortably beneath her. 'You can give it a label if you like. I don't put much store by doctors, personally, especially psychiatrists.'

  Jenny gave an understanding nod, hoping she would tell her more. It worked.

  'Freddy lost his father when he was younger and didn't get on with the man I was with,' Mrs Reardon said. 'But once the quacks get their claws into you it's hard to escape. I never wanted him in hospital but you're just the parent, you don't count for anything.'

  Becoming agitated, she heaved herself to her feet. 'Where is he? He said he'd be here by now.' She produced a cordless phone from amidst a heap of clutter on the table and dialled his number.

  'Freddy, it's Mum. Where are you? She's here, waiting for you.' She sighed. 'I don't care, it's up to you. Please yourself. All right, I will.' She stabbed the off button with a puffy finger.

  'Is everything all right?'

  'He doesn't want to talk to you in front of me.'

  'I don't want to force him.'

  Mrs Reardon was quiet for a moment, then suddenly flared. 'How about telling me what the hell it is you want from him?'

  'He was one of the people Eva spoke to a lot before she died. I just want to know what she said.'

  'I'm not stupid. He was at church the night she was killed, we went through all that with the police. He's only a boy - why can't you people leave him alone?'

  'I'm sorry. I didn't mean — '

  'He's got nothing to say to you. He's had enough trouble without you stirring it all up.'

  Jenny wondered if it was Freddy or his mother who was the more fragile. Her face was beetroot; she laboured for every breath.

  Deciding there was nothing to be gained by imposing herself, Jenny said goodbye and let herself out.

  She could tell it was Freddy skulking on the bench at the far end of the stretch of grass, even though from this distance all she could see was a shadowy outline, stooped forwards staring at the ground. She hesitated, in two minds whether to disturb him. She was tempted not to upset his delicate equilibrium, but the mother in her wouldn't let her leave him looking so pathetic. She had to make contact, if only to offer some reassurance. She approached slowly, picking her way around the broken beer bottles, giving him every chance to retreat, but he wanted her to come, she could feel it.

  'Hi, Freddy.'

  He was silent for a moment, then said, 'I told them. I didn't touch her. I didn't even know where she lived.'

  'Of course,' she said gently. 'It's hard to explain how I'm different from the police, but I am, very. My job is to find out how someone died.'

  'She was stabbed by a nutter.'

  'It certainly looks that way, but I have to make sure all the facts are known. I don't feel the police asked all the questions that needed to be asked. That's why I'm talking to people who knew her, people like you who knew what was going on in her life before she died.'

  'Nothing was going on,' Freddy said.

  'Do you want to tell me what you talked about on the phone? She called you a few times in her last week.'

  'I was in her study group. We talked about that, how the new people were doing.'

  'Did you ever discuss anything else? Did she talk to you about her life outside the church?'

  Freddy shook his head.

  Jenny could see why Eva might have taken him under her wing. Any thoughts she had entertained of a sordid connection between them dispelled. He was like a much younger child at the mercy of his moods, trusting and easily hurt.

  'I get the feeling she was very precious to you,' Jenny said.

  'It wasn't easy for her. People treated her like some sort of saint, but she was only human. She had feelings like everyone else.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'She got tired and depressed sometimes, but that's what your friends are for. Eva prayed for me when I first went to church and I prayed for her.'

  'What did she get depressed about?'

  'All the work she had to do, what people expected of her.'

  'She talked to you about that - the demands of her work?'

  'Sometimes. It wasn't that big a deal. She was tough. Tougher than most people.'

  Jenny wondered why Eva would choose a vulnerable teenage boy as a confidant, and presumed it was because she felt unthreatened by him. Michael Turnbull and his immediate colleagues were educated and suc
cessful. No matter how high her media profile, Eva would always have felt their inferior. Even the most pious would have seen her as the ex-porn star.

  'Freddy, do you think she was in any sort of trouble? Was anyone threatening or hassling her?'

  'She never said anything.'

  'She didn't get any problems from people who knew her from before?'

  'She never talked about that,' Freddy snapped. 'When you're born again, that's it, you're changed for ever. There's no need to go over the past. Your sins are taken away. The Holy Spirit drives out the bad spirits, that's the whole point.'

  Jenny nodded, longing to put a comforting arm around him.

  'That's what her book's about.' He looked at her with wounded, accusing eyes. 'I bet you haven't even read it.'

  'I've started,' Jenny lied.

  She could see he didn't believe her. 'You might learn something,' he said. 'God changes people. Not just a little bit, completely. And for ever. All you have to do is let him.'

  His heartfelt belief made her feel doubly deceitful. The idea that Freddy's closeness to Eva had tipped into a frenzy of murderous emotion seemed absurd; she despised Father Starr for having planted the poison in her mind. He was worse than a sly detective, moving in the shadows, forming baseless theories to suit his prejudice, not even man enough to tell her where he was getting his grubby information from.

  Jenny said, 'Freddy, I'm going to be straight with you. I may have to call you as a witness at my inquest. I know how much you've changed since going to church, but the fact that you've a criminal record will come out. I'm just preparing you for that.'

  Freddy shrugged. 'I waved a knife at my stepdad. It was stupid, but so was he. I told the police he did far worse to Mum, but they weren't interested in that.'

  'I see you got a supervision order.'

  A hint of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. 'It's like Eva said, it was all part of God's plan.'

  'What happened?'

  'The social worker took me to a psychiatrist and put me in hospital. They said I was psychotic. Maybe I was.' He looked at her with the same bright expression with which he'd greeted her the first time they had met. 'The doctor told my mum I could be on pills for the rest of my life. You should have seen his face after Lennox had prayed for me. He wouldn't believe it. He said it must have been my hormones or something. I haven't had pills for over a year. I don't need them any more. I've got peace of mind.'

  'Which hospital was it?'

  Freddy paused, a hint of suspicion in his eyes. 'What do you want to know that for?'

  The rock returned to Jenny's throat, bigger than ever.

  'Was it the Conway Unit?'

  'Might have been.'

  'And was there a nurse called Alan Jacobs there?'

  Freddy was quiet for a moment. 'He was one of them.'

  'Was it him who told you about the Mission Church?'

  'No. He had nothing to do with it. I thought you said you weren't like the police. I've had enough of this. You people are all the same.'

  He shot up from the bench and took off across the grass.

  'Freddy—'

  He broke into a run and didn't look back.

  It had been there all along. Buried in the police files was a rough photocopy of a barely legible handwritten list entitled, 'Persons spoken to informally'. All the big names at the Mission Church of God were listed: Bobby DeMont, Michael and Christine Turnbull, Lennox Strong, Joel Nelson, and more than twenty others. Two-thirds of the way down she made out Frederick Reardon and, a little further on, Alan Jacobs.

  Jenny had called DI Goodison, who made no attempt to disguise his annoyance at being troubled by her a second time. He had had a team of five detectives going through the church, he said. In the two day after Eva's death they spoke to whoever they could find who had been associated with her. They stopped when they did because Craven had come forward and confessed. There was no particular significance in the names on the list.

  'But are they all people connected with the Mission Church?' Jenny had asked.

  'As far as I recall,' Goodison answered, and made his excuses. He was far too busy to waste his time on a nitpicking coroner.

  She had tried DI Wallace, but he was no more forthcoming. There was no evidence of any connection between Jacobs and the Mission Church, he said dismissively, and even if there was, it would do nothing to shake his belief that Jacobs had killed himself.

  The two policemen probably occupied next-door offices, but might as well have inhabited separate continents. Each had their own teams and caseloads and seemed to run their fiefdoms with no interest in their colleagues except in beating them to their clear-up targets. In the race for results, the truth was an inevitable casualty.

  The prospect of meeting Mrs Jacobs again filled Jenny with a dread she could only suppress with another Xanax. The one mercy was that the widow had insisted on coming to see her at her office rather than have her daughter's routine disrupted by the appearance of another sombre stranger. She arrived a little after five, but when Alison brought her in, it was with a companion. Jenny recognized him as the priest who had sat at the back of the inquest.

  'Good afternoon, Mrs Cooper,' Ceri Jacobs said stiffly. 'This is Father Dermody from St Xavier's. I asked if he'd come with me. I trust you don't have a problem with that.'

  'I've no objection,' Jenny said.

  'I'm very grateful to you, Mrs Cooper,' Father Dermody said, and gave a kindly smile as he shook her hand.

  The widow and her priest settled into their chairs as much at ease with each other as man and wife. Jenny observed their exchange of glances and decided that Ceri Jacobs trusted him more than she trusted herself.

  'I'm sorry to trouble you again, Mrs Jacobs,' Jenny said, 'but it's not so much your husband's death I need to ask you about, as what he may, or may not, have known about someone else's. I presume you've heard of Eva Donaldson.'

  Ceri glanced nervously at Father Dermody, who answered for her. 'Of course we have. What about her?'

  Jenny opened a file and extracted the list. She passed it across the desk, placing it between them.

  'After she was killed the police informally questioned a number of people at the Mission Church of God who had been in contact with her. You'll see your husband's name appears on it, towards the bottom of the page.'

  Ceri Jacobs shook her head. 'I don't know anything about this.'

  Jenny said, 'I'll try to find out which detective it was who spoke to him, but I was wondering if he said anything about this to you.'

  'No.'

  Father Dermody frowned. 'Where would this questioning have taken place?'

  'If wasn't at your home, Mrs Jacobs, then I assume it was at your husband's workplace, or perhaps at the Mission Church itself.'

  'Why would he have been there?' Mrs Jacobs said with a note of panic.

  Jenny said, 'I'm conducting an inquiry into Miss Donaldson's death. Since the inquest into your husband's death there have been several separate indications that he was connected with the Mission Church in some way—'

  'He bought one book, that's all,' Mrs Jacobs protested. 'He didn't go to that church, he went to St Xavier's.' She appealed to her priest. 'Father, tell her.'

  'He was with us every Wednesday evening, Mrs Cooper, at our enquirers' class.'

  'I made some calls this afternoon,' Jenny said. 'During the last two months he was also attending a study group at the Mission Church. He'd signed up to the mailing list using his work address, and also to their email newsletter.'

  'He can't have done. He wouldn't have gone behind my back. We told each other everything.'

  'Calm yourself, Ceri,' Father Dermody said gently. 'It's hardly a grave sin.'

  'What day of the week was he meant to have been going there?' Mrs Jacobs demanded.

  'Fridays, it seems,' Jenny said.

  'He told me he was working late, the staff shortages. Why would he lie? He never lied to me.'

  Father Dermody laid a hand
on her arm. 'The poor man was suffering, Ceri. He didn't want to burden you. We prayed for him, we did what we could.'

  Fighting angry tears, Ceri Jacobs said, 'Please tell me you're not going to open this up again. I couldn't face that.'

  'I don't think that would help anyone. But so that I can rule him out, I would like to know where he was on the night Eva Donaldson died. It was Sunday, 9 May.'

  'He worked an extra half-shift Sunday evenings,' Ceri Jacobs said. 'He had done for several months.'

  Jenny stepped outside into reception to make the call. She caught Deborah Bishop just as she was leaving the office and persuaded her to return to her computer to check staff rosters. The answer was as she expected: Alan Jacobs hadn't worked on a Sunday evening all year, and on Fridays he had worked one hour of agreed overtime and clocked off at six.

  Ceri Jacobs listened to the news wearing a look of pure contempt, not for her husband, but for Jenny for shattering her already fractured illusions beyond any hope of repair.

  Father Dermody did his best to soften the blow. 'I know how much you wished for him to enter the faith, Ceri, but there are other types of Christian.'

  Deaf to his soothing words, Mrs Jacobs said, 'You won't stop here though, will you, Mrs Cooper? You won't be happy until every last sordid detail is dragged out and paraded in public. Can't you let the poor man rest in peace?'

  How can there ever be peace without truth? Jenny wondered, but kept the thought to herself. Now was not the time for preaching.

  Chapter 13

  The chilly, grey Monday morning could as easily have been in March as late June. Jenny gave an ironic smile as she gazed out at the bleakness of the scene that perfectly reflected her mood. All attempts to persuade the Courts Service to provide a courtroom in the handful of intervening days had failed. The only venue Alison had managed to find which could accommodate an inquest at short notice was a former working men's clubhouse on the fringes of Avon- mouth, the area of heavy industry where the River Avon emptied into the Severn estuary. Nestled between the factories that lined the shore from the sprawling docks to the east to the new Severn crossing in the west, it was a single-storey cinder-block building with a sheet tin roof, surrounded by a weedy area of gravel which merged into the surrounding wasteland. Nearby the massive chimney of a bitumen plant pumped out foul, cream-coloured smoke that smelled of hot tar and burning rubber. It was an unloved place that existed only to be passed through on the way to somewhere else; a fitting location, Jenny decided, to unpick the details of Eva Donaldson's death.